Knots, Knickerbocker and Knowing
by Rakusa
Summary: A knot and a knickerbocker, that's all it took to end a life that seemed destined never to end, no matter how many times it looked like it in the past. One-shot. complete.


Knots, Knickerbocker and Knowing

2 March 2011

Summary: The end has approached and it is about time. However life after the end was not expected.

AN: Ok, I definitely lied about not starting any new stories. But again, it's a one-shot ficlit... so I can be excused... right?

–

The way she died was very anticlimatic. After years of fighting dangerous foes, coming within inches of death, dying and coming back to life, bringing back everyone else, being in charge of the cauldron, and living hundred of thousands of years in an illness free zone with the best medical technology, so death was non-existent.

The way she died was almost simple. A simple knot and it took down the greatest heroine, ruler, most complex love-story with multiple versions and goddess non-gratis to ever exist. Well that and a knickerbocker. It wasn't the clothing, rather the real term for it. However the translation left something to be desired. "Toy marble-baker."

"Knick-knack-patty-wack, give a dog a bone." A voice chimed and Neo-Queen Serenity opened her eyes. Perhaps she wasn't dead after all. However she could not see who sang the olden day Earth nursery rhyme.

It followed her thoughts. It was strange, but then again, she was dead, she knew that for sure, so anything was capable. Even reading her thoughts, though that was not a special feat in itself. Her thoughts were an open book had anyone looked upon her face, however the words themselves...

Perhaps the knot was simple, but the marble toy that the baker had created was not. But the application of it was just as simple as the knot.

The knot was the same as a bow, with two loops and end of the string cut with two ends. The bow was at her back, like her fuku always was, but her dress was a lot more regal and conservative than that which she'd fought in so long ago. However it was a lot simplier than her times as either Neo-Queen or Silver Millenium Princess.

She was done in either by the bow or the knickerbocker, she just didn't know yet which to blame. The knickerbocker, a simple toy, made of marble, made by a baker of such things, had left it out and she tripped over it.

Her husband was off seeing their daughter who was now ruling over the Neo-Kingdom, rather, Queendom. Their home was a peaceful place, with people they trusted popping over every once in awhile. They thought she would be all right there, none of her usual shenanigans able to get at her while he was away. In fact a few had planned to visit in a few hours after this all happened, they'd called ahead to tell her such. However it was a few hours and she had not survived the intermission.

The only reason she stayed behind was the fact that he had planned for a minimum of three days. She had other plans, er, planned, before he had decided what he was going to do. He had intended to surprise Serenity with the trip to see her daughter, unknowing of her former engagement, which she'd not be attending even now. However she'd left her daughter and all those she loved on good terms, so she was not bitter of this happenstance, rather amused it happened now of all days, and of all ways.

"Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday, dear Serenity-Usagi-Sailor Moon-Cosmos-Serenity. Happy birthday to you!"

Serenity could see nothing in the darkness as she laid there, wondering why she was here in death and no where else. Serenity sighed and forced herself to a sitting position, wondering if the angle changed the view. No it did not. But still the voice, a teasing, lilting voice was no where to be see, or rather the body connected to it. Serenity sighed and finished out how she died. After all, it had been on her birthday that this happened. Endymion had not forgotten, which is why he'd planned the trip to go see his daughter, hoping to celebrate _both _birthdays with his two favorite girls. However he could not back out of his commitment when she put a damper on his carefully laid out plans.

She assured him, that by the time he got back, she would be ready to celebrate anew the turning of yet another year in her infinitely 20-something body. Their daughter having reached the age of 18 not long ago, and yet had not aged since. Their lives were slow progressions. However there was a cap on ages, Serenity had not aged along with her daughter, neither had her husband. Their aging was stopped altogether. Serenity would have liked to entered her thirties now that she wasn't ruling over an ageless planet and her daughter only being physically a few years younger than her.

It was better he was with her anyway. She was going to celebrate her 19th whether or not she was actually now nineteen was ignored. It was the first time they'd celebrate it, and they would not celebrate any year after that, but the age did fit the familiar path that her daughter had been aging at.

"You're remarkably young looking for your age." The nimble voice said, pulling Serenity into the area she now was in.

"Being over a millennia is remarkable. Not aging is also a benefit." She responded to the voice. All was silent for a moment.

"No.. you age really well... your body has now reached thirty, and yet you still look like your twenties. If you had survived into your forties, I still think you would be younger looking by far. Why are you here Serenity? What mistakes have you made this time? Why are you just sitting there?"

Serenity ignored the whispering voice, she knew of death and rebirth and destruction and creation. She'd had her hand in it several times over. All the while, she knew that whoever was in charge of such obscure and remote things were either one of two people, serious and stoic and unamused like the guardian of time, who aged much slower than her and would not ever again, nor could she die, not really, or they were playful and full of riddles and mindless chatter. It seemed her host for the evening was the second one. Serenity sometimes wondered if they all lost their mind somewhere along the way.

"That was not a kind thought." The musical voice chided. "So... how did you die? The unkillable Queen with a heart of gold... though not to death..."

That's what she had been sorting through, and so she finished her recollection. She had tripped over the simplest of marbles, so tiny she should have barely felt it, much less tripped on it. But being known for tripping on air, anything would do it, though not for quite sometime.

So she tripped and fell into the nearby pond that dated back to way before her time on Earth, to the Greeks and the Romans, though to them, it had been a sea, a vast and wonderous sea. It had shrunk in size over the years, the treasures lost still remained hidden in its depths, whatever it was that was not uncovered by the shrinkage at any rate, and it remained as deep as the Ocean. Serenity and Endymion's grounds surrounded the ancient sea and they built a walk around it, something unobtrusive to the natural beauty that cropped up in the absence.

She fell to the bottom of the depths, and her eyes had been opened, and she smiled at the uniqueness on her property. The beauty of the underground city. There were no dangers here. She had not yet died and realized that the greatest danger was often the most over-looked for its simplicity.

Her breath became short, and she pushed off the ground, intending to resurface and then dive down again. How no one had known about all this treasure was amazing. However her intentions were thwarted. The back of her dress stuck, or rather the body got hooked onto one of the statue's marble swords and she fought and struggled, and lost more precious breath. Eventually she passed out, her world becoming black.

"This isn't death, is it? I'm just unconscious underwater and someone can still save me, can't they?"

"Is that what you want?" The voice asked as Serenity rose to her feet, the most she had moved since arriving.

"Would it make any difference?"

"No." The voice floated around as if in a dance with the wind. "But it might make it easier on you."

"Am I dead?"

"Yes." The voice seemed so close, Serenity felt she could reach out and touch it. It would have slipped through her fingers anyways.

"I am ready. There are no regrets, I would not want to see Endy's face as I said goodbye. It was hard enough when it was only a temporary separation."

"It is a temporary separation." The voice laughed. "Everyone dies. You've just proven it."

"Will anyone find me?" Serenity was a little concerned now for the others and their closure. She didn't want them looking for her, fearing her abduction.

"You have already risen to the surface. The bow in a last act of irony loosened and let you go when it was too late. There is no chance of survival. You will not be discovered for another hour yet."

Serenity walked towards the voice, and as she walked, the darkness slowly faded into a small light that grew bigger as she continued. There was a little girl, younger than the first time Serenity had met Rini, dressed in a sailor fuku, with a staff like Pluto's at the gate to the other world. "You wont take Endymion, will you? It would be weak of me to ask for him right away. I don't want his life to be cut short."

"You would rather him pain for the absence of you?" The little girl was gorgeous, the most beautiful child Serenity had ever seen, more so than even her own. "After that same Millenia of having you in his life, within touching distance if he so chose?"

"Endymion will suffer, and I will feel bad about that, but he has his own time to live and time to die. Mine might have been an accident-."

"Cut tragically short actually." The girl's smile only brightened her face, even if it was a little off. "Or at least that's what they'll say. Who knows, perhaps they're right, that it isn't your time yet to die. How can you live without him? You who fought day in and day out to mess with the fates, demanding your own way?"

"I'm demanding it still. I want him with me when his time comes, but not before. I had him."

The little girl nodded, too young to be burden with this chore. "Why do you think it is a burden? I enjoy it."

"To decide who goes where, judging what kind of life they'd had."

The girl laughed. "I only specialize in those of senshi. The humans or the similar of other planets have something else they believe in. Others take those forms."

The little girl laughed. "Don't worry your pretty head about anything. You will go only to good places."

"The end of this world, this perfect place of peace, what could the next really hold?"

"This is still the world. It hasn't been perfect." The little girl giggled. "There is still death and the end. Nobody thinks of it in the next, there are no thoughts of what is beyond, because all is known."

"Will the others come?"

"In time." The little girl giggled again. "Though not much. This is the start of your generation."

"It's going to be a whirlpool, pulling them all in now?"

The girl shook her head. "No, all in their own time. One by one as things come. Pluto too, and Saturn, to be taken over by the next generation. Though it will only be a blink in your life on this side of the gate, but here, it could be the same time, or it could be hundreds of years."

"What about Reni*? You said my generation. What will happen to her?"

"Each generation of the Moon has a guardian of their life, you had one that lasted longer than most, she was getting tired of this job. She was happy when you tripped into the pond, it gave her the ability to leave. You'd never see her though, not until you're on the other side. Until you die, no one else can. You bring them back."

"But the enemy, there's been ones that have died in battle, how could they cross to the other side?"

The little girl laughed at Serenity, and while the girl had only been in charge of death for a few hours, she seemed more knowing than Serenity. Serenity began to wonder how the girl managed that. "I was born into death, and grew up there, waiting for my chance to come out. I grew to this age and got stuck, waiting for you to die." She shrugged. "Sorry."

"What about-"

"You worry too much about everyone else. Why don't you just cross over and be happy."

"I guess I need answers."

"The answers you seek, will be there in a moment, and all of them are there without even needing to raise the question, even before you think of it."

"Call me old fashion." Serenity shrugged in return. "When will you take my daughter?"

"I do not take. The enemies you speak of, they were part of a different chain. They are not your subjects, but they all go to the same place, were they the same in life, being good or bad. They go where they belong. This is just the in-between. As for your daughter, I am her generation's guardian. Once she dies, then another one will take my place. Someone for her child, if she were to have one. I no longer know that. I only ferry passage for those that remain behind you until it is my time, it is her time. I grow as she grows. For every year I age, hundreds pass for her. Your guardian was a very old woman, decrepit almost. The most ancient one I had ever seen in passing. I wonder though, had you not had an accident, what would have happened. You were only physically in your early thirties."

"Reni will live a long time?"

"Yes. She is unable to die until I am grown fully. I am only three years old, High Queen Serenity." Her laughter tinkled again. "How did anyone come up with the term Neo-Queen Serenity? What would it matter? You were never a Queen in the past... Your daughter isn't called Neo-Queen Serenity II."

"It's Neo-Tokyo." Serenity mumbled, having wondered the same thing herself once before. It was just more of a mouthful than she was used to before she became Queen of this new future. It was annoying enough to think of herself as Serenity after being called Usagi, and then added Princess as proper title. Sometimes as Lady Princess Serenity, then Lady Serenity or Queen Serenity or Lady Neo-Queen Serenity even more, or Your Highness, my Lady, Neo-Queen Serenity. Just the one word added yet another thing to say or at least be called. "I removed the Neo from her name."

"Yes, I knew that." The girl looked as amused as she'd acted the entire time. "What I wouldn't know from the past..."

"Reni is not able to die until you are fully grown? That she will be like me, any danger that may befall her, will be somehow reversed as she controls the silver and golden crystal and will be able to wish herself back, as long as it's a pure wish?"

"It is as you say. Though there is always an off chance that she is not strong enough to defeat a challenge in her future. Though.. she has fought along side of you, so I think you should not worry."

"Will she be happy? Will all of them...?"

"I think you know the answer to that better than I do."

Serenity bowed her head, she knew that none of them would be happy, at least not the way they had been, now that she was dead, but there'd be happy moments, for almost all of them. No matter how close she was to each of them, there were two that would never get over her loss. Even though Reni was thousands of years old, she was only nineteen in body. It was too early to be taken from her. A whole range of life that they did not experience. Serenity almost regretted her death but then she remembered the decay her own mother had gone through, though she wasn't sure that the Lunar race would do that as well.

Endymion would regret it the most, every happiness he had would be tainted by the memories he had of Serenity and the fact that she wasn't there to share the rest of his days. Reni wouldn't be as affected as Endymion, as a child it was different and she might be sad at times, but it wasn't as shared as when it was someone so intimate, so close... a child could not do that. A child was close to the parents in a different way, a different irreplaceable and incomparable.

She felt selfish for wanting him to join her as soon as possible, but she didn't want him to join her until it was his time. But at the same time, for him, she wanted him to suffer less. Serenity looked behind her, already knowing her decision, but making one last check. All she saw was blackness. "They will all pass by you?"

"You won't even know that there will be time passed. But yes, all will come through me. Every one of them. You need not worry."

"Will you-"

"I'll give them your message."

Serenity nodded and then walked through the doors that just appeared behind the girl, there was no way to tell what she was walking into, and once the doors closed, everything became clear. All she had to do now, was wait, or not even notice the waiting. But Serenity could never forget the world she left behind, like the others here, not until everyone joined her. Even her daughter. Once that day happened, all was well in the world. She didn't even need to ask, and no one was sad that she didn't, all was understood once those doors shut behind them. They spent eternity together, with no more worries and only happiness. Even the destruction of Earth didn't faze them or affect them, they'd done their job. This was their reward.

Death was possible.

–

*I put it as Reni, rather than Rini or Reenie, just because it's Serenity, it Se reni ty, the younger. Besides, neither Reenie nor Rini are right, especially as they're the Japanese characters. Chibi-Usa is short for Chibi-Usagi, which is small rabbit. Rini and Reenie, are both misspellings and both could be true and both are right.

* * *

EAN: So what do we think?


End file.
